


don't worry about it

by serevelaa



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), The Yogscast
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Explosions, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Yoglabs Setting, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:42:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29502888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serevelaa/pseuds/serevelaa
Summary: He had never been debriefed on their decontamination protocols, Simon thought. He was second-in-command. Shouldn’t he know?OR: the ending scene from the last episode of YogLabs where Simon dies and Lewis lets it happen.
Relationships: Lewis Brindley & Simon Lane
Kudos: 3





	don't worry about it

"Pull the lever! Pull the lever!"

Lewis’ voice hung darkly in the air, slipping through the cracks of the dwarf’s mind and lodging itself the cogs, slowing them down until they trekked brokenly as if logged by sand. They had been friends once, he thought distantly. They had been friends until this place had been built. He recalled sitting on rooftops in the cold, building experimental rockets, swiping at skeletons until the magic that sewed their bones together was swept off by diamond daggers. He recalled Lewis’ face as it had been when they were younger. Back then they laid on rooftops and watched the orange sunset, and he could count every eyelash on his friend’s face.

Now, he barely saw his friend at all. His face sagged with years of frowns and the chaos of a broken facility. YogLabs had been a labor — perhaps of ambition rather than love, but a labor nonetheless — and it had created the strangest change in Lewis Brindley. Simon, in that moment of contemplation, of staring down at the three switches beneath his shaking palms, wondered why. He must know the answer, somewhere deep down. He felt the memory buried under fog, and perhaps given a better moment, he might have tried his hand at unraveling it from the tangled sinews of his mind. His memories didn’t work as well as they seemed to, but up until recently, it didn’t matter. After all, Lewis had told Simon not to worry about it, and Lewis, keeping him on as short a leash as ever, was always right. 

Right?

 _Pull the lever,_ the voice echoed again, and Simon stirred briefly enough to regain his senses. His brows furrowed deep into his forehead. “What?”

"The lever to initiate decontamination! The one right in front of you!"

He had never been debriefed on their decontamination protocols, Simon thought. He was second-in-command. Shouldn’t he know?

(He didn’t know. He didn’t know much at all after The Incident.)

The hesitation didn’t last long, and he gave a massive, desperate lurch for the lever. The unused plank made an obnoxious creaking noise, and suddenly the facility was enveloped by crimson lights and the raucous screaming of alarms. Beside him, Lewis stilled, and Simon spun to meet the ever-impassive figurehead that had become of his friend. He was smiling, he thought, though his lips twitched at the edges unconvincingly. Lewis did not smile back. He retreated from the touch of their shoulders and left the room. 

"Stay there," was the breath that escaped him, though it was hard to hear through the wailing and the creeping sound of monsters lurking from the hallway. The fear enough was what made him disobey, and he closed the distance between him and the now-closed door with fumbling steps. When his sturdy hands met the doorknob and tried to turn it, he was naive enough to feel shock.

“Lewis. . .” he began numbly. His smile was gone. “Lewis?”

Lewis did not answer at first. There was a glass screen on the iron barricade, and perhaps it was just the frosted sheen of it that made Simon dare to wonder if Lewis’ eyes were as glassy as they looked. “You’ll be fine.” It was a distant, impersonal promise. 

Simon’s body racked with a feral shiver. It had not been words meant for him. He knew it by the way his friend’s eyes loosed themselves from Simon’s pleading stare. The decontamination had been meant to destroy anyone outside of the chamber, and apparently only Lewis was making it out today. The patter of mob footsteps was approaching. Simon gripped the Eine-Stein with fury, letting the electric light fill the room and zap away the first few Tubbies that had started to enter the room. Simon was going to die here. He was going to die, and Lewis was letting him. Suddenly accusative, he whorled back to the glass. “What do you mean I’ll be fine?” _Don’t you see this shit? They’re going to fucking murder me!_

Lewis did not answer for a long while, and Simon could not see him anymore. He shot another round of the zombies before pressing his back to the door once more, letting Lewis’ quiet answer seep through his skin: "Yoglabs’ self-destruct will take them out."

 _Them. The zombies. All of us. The Testificates. Me._ Simon stopped breathing entirely. He suddenly felt dead again. (Not that he would know what being dead was like.) And suddenly the world spun. Or maybe it stopped. Simon couldn't tell. His friend — his bestest friend in the whole wide world — was letting him die along with the rest of the godforsaken facility. A violent memory lurched its way to the forefront of his head, of he and Lewis’ days gone past. And then they wouldn’t stop, coming and coming like the betrayal had broken some kind of dam. It was bitter coffees, and laughing fits, and fields of grain, and skyships, and men with stark white faces and red eyes, and sparring, and bread, and chocolate cookies, and gifted axes, and smoke, and smoke, and smoke, and smoke.

And because Simon must not have said anything for a while, Lewis spoke up again. "Simon, you're going to be fine." The scientist's voice was woody and strained.

But there wasn’t much to say. A zombie from the mob began the gruesome task of ripping the gun from his hands, and Simon let it happen. “How is this decontamination?” The voice on the intercom said something he didn’t quite catch. They were onto his clothes, his beard, his face, grabbing onto whatever bits of flesh they could grab, sucking him down like the sand at the wall, and Simon was letting it happen.

"Good luck, friend."

“ _Lewis!_ ” Simon’s throat racked with blood, torn raw from the effort of it. " _Lewis!_ " His plea was so horribly desperate, and Goliath was so emotionless behind the doors. " _Lewis! Please!_ "

He must not have heard it between the snapping of cables.

The harsh beeping of alarms muted. A horrifying ripple of agony coursed through Simon’s muscles, and for a deafening moment there had been nothing but a scream.

Blind silence. White light came from somewhere far away.

Nothing.

**THANK YOU FOR VISITING YOGLABS.**

**Author's Note:**

> Can I be real for a second? I wrote this four years ago and abandoned it in a Google Docs. Just found it recently, polished up the grammar mistakes, and am now letting it free into the wild expanse that is MCYT Ao3. I don't expect this to get much traction, but I definitely do have a soft spot for The Yogs and their early Minecraft stuff, so maybe the few people who happen upon it can get a kick out of it. Shadow of Israphel is definitely still a comfort series of mine, and it really was such a revolutionary series; way ahead of its time, seeing that roleplay a la DSMP is popular again.
> 
> Anyways. . . enjoy? I'm totally not done with the MCYT realm. I'm planning a big Dream SMP fic, so stay tuned for that, maybe!
> 
> As always, comment and leave kudos if you enjoyed. Helps out a lot :)


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